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Perhaps it was the late hour; perhaps it was the long road; perhaps it was the soothing ale, but regardless of which it was, Estahir found himself dozing off, mug in hand, face splayed on the table.
He was drifting, in memory, to those first events that had led him to carry coins of Araphant of Arthedain in his purse...
It had been soon after the coronation of King Elessar. Estahir had been recuperating on the Field of Cormallen, having taken a rather silly wound from a troll after surviving the Paths of the Dead and the Battle of the Pelennor. His leg smashed by the troll's great strength, he hobbled around on a crutch, his leg firmly bound up to heal.
He had been hobbling through the tents of the wounded, seeking to alleviate the boredom of his condition, when he came upon a dying man, his body covered in nasty looking wounds and cuts, who was unattended by any of the healers. The man was weakly calling out. Estahir hobbled over.
"Here!" the dying man thrust a dirty-looking rag into Estahir's hands. "Riches and glory awaits you!"
"What?" Estahir had inquired, but the dying man's breath was growing weaker, and he lacked the energy to say more. Only his eyes, burning with a feverish intensity, tried to explain. Estahir flattened out the cloth.
On the cloth, he soon saw, was a rough map, showing a piece of unidentified terrain, and some hastily written instructions in Westron: Here is hid the horde of Angelimir of Nenuial.
The name meant nothing to Estahir. But the dying man was fading fast, and he did not speak again ere he died. The man himself was something of a mystery. He was not Rohirric, nor of the Rangers. His clothes were nondescript, and he could have come from anywhere in Gondor. No one that saw his body ere he was buried knew him. The healers said that he had been found among the wounded from Lebennin, but that meant little.
In the events that followed, the awakening of the Ringbearer, and the return to Minas Tirith, and the coronation and wedding of the King Elessar, Estahir had little time to muse over the rag, little knowing that it would ultimately take him across Eriador, to the ruined hold of Carn Dûm, the northern shores of Lake Evendim, and into the Enedwaith and the depths of Drûwaith Iaur.
Estahir stirred from his dozing, someone having bumped his table in passing. Had he but known then what he knew now, he would likely have burned the rag as soon as he found it.
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